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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478134">Up, Down, Strange, Charm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy'>Irrelevancy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, Families of Choice, Family Drama, M/M, Marco/Ace is casual, Organized Crime, Other, Political Alliances, Urban Setting, antagonizing each other on the way, the plot is enemies building a relationship out of mutual need</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:08:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Whitebeard's most infamous son returns from five unexplained years abroad. He runs a tattoo parlor, and Shanks has his reasons for visiting.</p><p>ShanksMarco, Organized crime!AU</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks/Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Up, Down, Strange, Charm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello hello hello! Given my track record, I don't know how good an idea it is to start posting an unfinished fic-with-actual-plot, but listen, it's not getting written when I'm just sitting on it either. Please enjoy this strange beastie of a fic as we plod along, and yell at me to write more ;;;</p><p>會中文/閩南語的朋友們，這chapter的名字其實應該是《浪子回頭》，呵呵<br/>Have some heartaching Taiwanese music to go along with this chapter: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3bDhtuC5yk%22">Back Here Again</a> by EggPlantEgg</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">
  <em>Terminal 3, 4PM<br/></em>
  <em>If you’re free<br/></em>
  <em>SENT 9:12AM</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>I’m sure I’ll find the time :)))<br/></em>
  <em>READ 10:32AM</em>
</p><hr/><p class="western">At the airport, Ace greeted him with a kiss.</p><p class="western">Lips lingered, along with the curl of fingers into the collar of Marco’s shirt. And there was a heated and sensuous swipe of tongue.</p><p class="western">Marco blinked.</p><p class="western">“Hello to you too, yoi.”</p><p class="western">“This is probably TMI, but.” Ace pulled away from Marco with great, groaning reluctance, a fact that made Marco feel quite smug (which, he suspected, was Ace’s design; the shape of Ace’s welcome-back present). “I’m so inconsolably horny right now.”</p><p class="western">“So nothing’s changed at all in five years,” Marco deadpanned. Ace’s hand slapped at his chest, but became distracted again with the caressing. It was ridiculous enough to startle a genuine laugh out of Marco, one that had to break through 22 hours of accumulated flying and airport ennui. “I’d hate to disappoint but I’m running on fumes yoi. The best I have to offer is a passionless blowjob in a bathroom stall.”</p><p class="western">“I know, I know, and I shouldn’t be harassing you. I was given strict instructions to deliver you promptly, and we don’t have the time—”</p><p class="western">“—oh I’m sure we can spare three minutes for you—”</p><p class="western">“—<em>asshole</em>.” Ace’s rueful expression did nothing to convince Marco he’d genuinely last any longer than three minutes, if he actually got his way. “Okay, fuck, calm down Portgas. Marco! Welcome back, geez, it’s so good to see you!”</p><p class="western">“<em>Marco</em>!” came Luffy’s cheery voice, punctuated by the loud slaps of his sandals as he sprinted across the arrivals linoleum. Grumpy-faced security guards lining the hall looked like they wanted to intervene, but like the fourth law of motion, Luffy’s sheer will to action kept them at bay. Luffy bowled hard into Marco, all entwining limbs and the <em>carry me!</em> energy of manic toddlers. “Hey man, it’s been so long!”</p><p class="western">Sure, Marco’s muscles strained under Luffy’s weight, but he’d be hard pressed to give up a hug like that. Grinning, Marco extracted his arms from under Luffy’s and hugged the boy—<em>man</em>, now that Luffy was, god, twenty?<em>—</em>back.</p><p class="western">“I didn’t know you were coming, yoi.”</p><p class="western">“Picked him up from Tottoland,” Ace said with significance. Marco’s back immediately straightened at the name of the rival, and Luffy slid back down to his feet. “He’s doing very well there, all things considered. So I told him he could celebrate with us tonight.”</p><p class="western">“Of course,” Marco agreed. He ruffled Luffy’s hair with a snicker. “What do they have you doing there, huh? Quality control? Destructive testing?”</p><p class="western">“Worse,” Ace snorted.</p><p class="western">“I’m in IT,” Luffy answered brightly, cackling when Marco’s eyes widened at the horrible implications. “That’s the same face Zoro made too. But Robin said it makes sense, if I’m trying to fuck up their shit—”</p><p class="western">“Yeah but we’re not trying to talk business,” Ace interrupted. Another wave of travelers was pouring out of the arrival gate with the single-mindedness found only in humans who’d just had to wait two hours in the immigration line. Sneakers and knees jostled Marco’s luggage, and Ace immediately took hold of both suitcases and the carryon. “You’re supposed to be relaxing, Marco, after a long <em>five years </em>at work.”</p><p class="western">“Well I should still catch up on family business yoi—”</p><p class="western">“Nope! Anathema. C’mon then, car’s this way. Luffy, distract him.”</p><p class="western">“Ace ate a spider this morning.”</p><p class="western">“Not like <em>that</em>—”</p><p class="western">“—on purpose?!”</p><p class="western">“Yeah. I barely had to dare him, <em>shishishi</em>. Oh also! I nearly got eaten by a giant octopus yesterday!”</p><p class="western">“...I don’t even know where to start asking, yoi.”</p><p class="western">“He and Usopp—have you met Usopp? Good guy, long nose, can lie like nobody’s business? Banchina’s kid, god rest her soul—they went sailing on Lake Syrup, right? And—”</p><p class="western">“—saw these tentacles, and this <em>huge</em> kraken thing—”</p><p class="western">“—wasn’t a <em>kraken</em>—”</p><p class="western">“—<em>shishishi</em>, and all its arms started wrapping around our ship! And we had to catch it and bring it out to the estuary! And it ran away.”</p><p class="western">“<em>Ran</em>?”</p><p class="western">“I didn’t believe it until Usopp showed the video he took, but yeah. Ran. Eight legs and all.”</p><p class="western">“We saved its life.”</p><p class="western">“I bet you only wanted to eat it at first though...”</p><p class="western">For just a moment, as the automatic doors opened to the humid air of the city he so knew and loved, Marco had a hard time remembering what exactly it was that’s kept him away for this long. It was good to be home.</p><hr/><p class="western">Only when they pulled onto the highway did Marco ask after their destination. There were only a few options, after all, and the difference hardly mattered to him. Even with lethargy weighing on his eyelashes, Marco couldn’t wait to see his family again, at, presumably, this destination Ace had been strictly instructed to promptly bring Marco to.</p><p class="western">“Want to drop your stuff off first?” Ace asked, shirt unbuttoned to a low and rude V the moment he got into the driver’s seat. He had seen Marco looking and given a salacious wink, along with a suggestive stroke down his stick shift. “See the store?”</p><p class="western">“The—”</p><p class="western">Caught completely off-guard by the offer, Marco only blinked owlishly at the suggestion. Luffy, who’d shoved his head right in between the driver and passenger seats (with zero regard to mundane, mortal items like safety belts), laughed, and Ace grinned at Marco with both self-consciousness and no small amount of pride.</p><p class="western">“Oh yeah, didn’t I mention? I’ve been keeping it up in your absence.”</p><p class="western">“I take it back yoi,” Marco replied in floaty wonder, “I’ll give you the most passionate blowjob of your life.”</p><p class="western">“Oh <em>sure</em>,” Ace hissed, as they swerved a little in the high-speed lane, “say that when I’m going a hundred twenty and too conscientious to accept road head.”</p><p class="western">Tossing his head back, Marco laughed brightly, openly, all the subtle drain of the past five years abroad and the long-trudging trip back shaking off of him like feathers from a burst pillow. He could hardly believe it—in the scant handfuls of days he’d been Stateside in the last half decade, he’d honestly been too afraid to ask what the Family’d done with his store. He only gave himself enough time to clean out his apartment, and left the rest to his siblings. Besides, the store wasn’t his exclusive property, and if anyone needed it to front as anything else, that absolutely took priority. Nobody had said anything to him either (there were generally much more pressing things to discuss, when Marco was in the meetings). Little did he expect that Ace had been maintaining his pride and joy all this time.</p><p class="western">“Ace, I could kiss you.” And Marco did, leaning over with a dramatic smack of the lips against a freckled cheek. Ace didn’t reply in words, but flushed with pleasure. “Have <em>you</em> been doing the tattooing?”</p><p class="western">“Some,” Ace said, as they zoomed past towering vertical evergreens lining the highway. With his past eight months spent in countries close to the equator, Marco has absolutely missed this sight. “So has Luffy, actually.”</p><p class="western">“Lu—” When Marco turned around, it was to the sight of an inculpable grin, all teeth. “Uh, have your art skills improved, yoi?”</p><p class="western">“<em>Nah</em>,” Ace cackled.</p><p class="western">“I am a <em>great</em> drawer,” Luffy declared. “Marco, you should let me give you a tattoo.”</p><p class="western">“Ah yes, Marco’s dream tattoo of the worst stick figure ever seen out of a kindergartener’s notebook—”</p><p class="western">“You know what?” It wasn’t even the elation at finding his tattoo parlor intact that made Marco light-headed. This was the first time Luffy’s ever offered to ink him (with absolute seriousness, such was the way of the D. brothers), and it felt precious. More precious than the normative ideas of permanence on skin. “Why not?”</p><hr/><p class="western">Ace really had maintained it. There were no cobwebs, no water stains seeping through plaster, no greasy smears on the glass doors—not even any dust gathered on all the visible surfaces. All his instruments had been pulled out of drawers and laid across the counter behind the register, presumably to make access and periodical cleaning easier. Chairs and stands have clearly been moved and moved back, but that was entirely alright. Marco didn’t need the picture-perfect details that he hardly remembered anyways, because he was already tearing up at the absolutely unbeatable feeling of <em>coming home</em>. Like some migratory bird returning to its roost, his heart settling perfectly into every old nook and cranny.</p><p class="western">Marco kissed Ace again. And, just for good, pulled Ace into the back office for that promised blowjob. God, it wasn’t even the first time Marco had dropped to his knees in that particular spot—how lost he would’ve felt coming home, if he’d been told it was all gone. Musk and salt felt so <em>good</em> on his tongue, as did Ace’s desperate clutching fingers yanking feeling back into his scalp. He was awake again. He was truly Marco again, home, there in the Phoenix Tattoo Parlor.</p><p class="western">They emerged to a setting sun and Luffy on the phone, lounging on the hood of Ace’s car. At the sight of them, Luffy perked up.</p><p class="western">“Yeah, they’re done,” he reported. That was, now that Marco looked more closely, Ace’s phone, left in the cupholder. It was probably Thatch, ever the party-planning enthusiast, on the line, wanting to know where the hell Ace and Luffy had gone off to with Marco. “We can head over now. Hey, there’s gonna be lots of meat, right? I’m <em>starving</em>.”</p><p class="western">With an anticipatory wince, Ace lifted the phone from Luffy’s fingers and brought it gingerly to his ear.</p><p class="western">“Hey Thatch—” And even Marco jumped at the tinny, yelled reply. “—okay, yeah, yup, I know, that’s my bad, I just, yup, okay, mhm, we’re on our way now. And you do have lots of meat right? I’m starving too hahah—”</p><p class="western">The dial tone was just as jarring as the yelling. Ace shoved the phone back into his pocket with a sheepish smile.</p><p class="western">“Guess we really should get going.” All the bags had been deposited in the loft upstairs, and Marco was determined not to think about them and moving back into his old apartment space (Marco had left it completely and utterly empty, everything of sentiment stored away in Jozu’s new apartment) again until much, much later (ideally with a lot more alcohol consumption). “Ready then?”</p><p class="western">“You still haven’t told me where this party’s at, yoi,” Marco said as they all slid into their seats, doors slamming shut all around.</p><p class="western">“Shanks’ place!” Luffy announced, with that same giddy hero-worship he’s had since he was an actual kid. “It’s where we have <em>so</em> many of the parties now.”</p><p class="western">And the surprises never stopped coming. This one though, hardly brought about the same euphoria as the last.</p><p class="western">Ace turned to look at him, as if suddenly remembering.</p><p class="western">“That’s right, you and Red Hair...” They U-turned onto a main street, Ace’s driving point-perfect and ever polite to pedestrians, even with much less generosity-inclined cars beeping angrily behind him. “Will it be alright?”</p><p class="western">“Sure,” Marco said with a shrug, because as weird as he may feel about it, there really wasn’t anything <em>not alright</em> with partying at Shanks’ bar. Marco hasn’t been in ages, and maybe they’ve finally done some refurbishing. “Me and Red Hair nothing, it’s only eating and drinking yoi.”</p><p class="western">“And besides,” Luffy said from the back, sounding only a little like he’s pouting, “they said Shanks probably can’t even make it tonight.”</p><hr/><p class="western">The décor was as garish as it’s always been. Burnt-out fairy lights strung across the ceiling, broken plastic baubles still dangling everywhere, leftover from six Christmases ago, when Red Hair first bought this dump and threw an opening night party. Neon signs from beer brands spray-painted over, spilling blues and reds and purples out in retina-sizzling glow. A wall of empty rum bottles all toppled over, once an ambitious display of some sort. Red vinyl seats ripped straight from the walls of the dilapidated old diner just around the corner. Theater chairs with those flip seats and itchy upholstery, ripped straight from the dilapidated old cinema just around the other corner. Every surface sticky.</p><p class="western">His numerous siblings greeted Marco at the entrance with cheers loud enough to induce sirens. Or, they would’ve been, had the neighborhood not been so damn used to Family raucousness. There were also backslaps hard enough to break ribs, hugs crushing enough to rupture organs.</p><p class="western">Marco loved every minute of it, determinedly shoving away all specters of guilt and giving back as good as he got.</p><p class="western">“Pop’s flight was delayed by a bit of a snowstorm,” Vista said as he pushed a stein of beer into Marco’s hand. Hesitant on his response, Marco gulped down some of the drink instead, fully expecting it to be watered-down swill. To his pleasant surprise, it packed a nice punch, and the herbal scent sat happily in his sinuses.</p><p class="western">“Toronto?” Vista nodded in confirmation, looking just a little wry. He obviously expected something from Marco, the drama-loving French bastard, but Marco had already made up his mind to give nothing before coming back. “Well, safety first yoi. I’ll still be here in the morning.”</p><p class="western">“Yeah, you’d better be,” Thatch chimed in, falling in on Marco’s other side with a bony elbow slinging over Marco’s shoulders. “I didn’t work my ass off for three whole months getting everybody back here for the night just for you to say <em>just kidding yoi, I’m actually on the next flight out to Bucharest</em>.”</p><p class="western">“Dublin, actually.”</p><p class="western">Thatch gave him the stink eye, belying just a hint of genuine trepidation. Marco held back a smile for as long as he could.</p><p class="western">“What? They say Dun Laoghaire’s best in the winter.” With a yell of annoyance, Thatch tried to bring Marco down into a headlock, but Marco ducked out of it, knocking Thatch down into the nearest chair without spilling his beer even a little. “C’mon Thatch, I was just in Bucharest. Everything’s fucking sorted.”</p><p class="western">“The amazing thing,” Jozu interjected mildly, a truly enormous cup of mojito with crushed ice sparkling in neon primary colors in hand, “is that you’ve been saying that for the past five years.”</p><p class="western">Marco’s eyes narrowed.</p><p class="western">“Are you doubting my word, yoi?”</p><p class="western">“Your results speak for themselves.” When Jozu shrugged, the giant shadow he cast across half the pub shrugged with him. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, what the hell man? What possessed you to take on all of that by yourself?”</p><p class="western">“My roommate’s BO,” Marco replied impassively. “And the fact that he was turning our living room into a 24hour Fitness. I had to get out of the country.”</p><p class="western">Jozu set down his mojito, and picked up Marco in a spinning bear hug.</p><p class="western">“You absolute bitch.” Jozu’s tone was all enthusiastic forgiveness for Marco’s absence, but he was also flexing all of his not inconsiderable amount of muscles like a junkyard metal compactor. When Marco was finally set down, he expected to find bruises and even hairline fractures in the morning. “Well, rest assured, because I’m too fulfilled in my current living arrangements to move back in with you.”</p><p class="western">Marco handed Jozu back his drink with a warn grin.</p><p class="western">“Yes yoi—how is the missus?”</p><p class="western">“Oh, Marco, you’re killing me,” Vista moaned. “You can tell <em>us</em>.”</p><p class="western">“There’s nothing to tell,” Marco insisted, all while discretely thumbing the phone in his pocket, ready to pull up flight announcements out of Toronto whenever nobody was watching. “You already know everything important.”</p><p class="western">“There’ve been whispers,” Jozu added shrewdly. “People—<em>powerful</em> people—saying you and Pops had a falling out.”</p><p class="western">“Oh sure yoi. We fell out so much that I crawled across the world for five years just to iron out the kinks in this ridiculously large organization of his.” He’d heard the whispers too, but hearing the accusation from his family’s lips still stung something different. His sarcasm was genuine, all details aside. “Do I need to go sort out some powerful people tomorrow?”</p><p class="western">“What kinda family do you think we are?” Vista demanded, finally apologetic. Marco had never been too good at squaring away his emotions, after all, and Vista must’ve seen the real upset on his face. “It’s sorted. It’s been sorted for years.”</p><p class="western">“Yeah,” Thatch added, ruffling the top of Marco’s head the way he’s done since they were children. “We Marie Kondo’d the shit out of this city for you, Marco. They don’t bring you joy? Outta here.”</p><p class="western">“We’ve got your back.” The solemn authenticity Jozu so effortlessly brought to everything he said really did wonders for relaxing the stiff arches of Marco’s shoulders. So did the huge hand and hard squeeze to his muscles. Marco has always said that if cosmopolitan criminality didn’t work out, Jozu had quite a career option as a masseuse. “Always have, always will.”</p><p class="western">It really was good to be back.</p><p class="western">The rest of the evening went on just so, Marco playing catchup with every sibling that could fit under the roof. The Whitebeard Family’s network being what it was (i.e. busy as shit), there were people doing literal drive-by’s; Brocca in the driver’s seat of a <em>sleek </em>lowrider, Brew in the passenger’s seat smoking up a storm as they headed south to “handle a situation for church;” Banshee arriving on an electric scooter just to deliver a small ziplock bag of overbaked cookies (ingredients unverified), then zooming right off; Blamenco being dropped off by some strangers hooting from a car, then being picked up by another car immediately after giving Marco a punch in the chest, yelling how he’ll return in twenty. And those were just the B’s.</p><p class="western">Everyone else stayed for the promise of free booze and food. At some point Thatch waved a handful of siblings out back to greet a delivery truck and the driver, a rotund grinning man who introduced himself as Lucky Roo. Then, the back of the truck was opened, and everyone swarmed to bring out the genuine <em>tons</em> of food stacked on the shelves along its insides (Teach, with his gleeful bulk, hoisted two huge boxes of Iberico ham, one over each shoulder). The food that was supposed to be hot was all hot, and all the sudden everything smelled of delicious barbecue.</p><p class="western">“I’m pretty sure I only asked for eighteen racks of ribs,” Thatch said with a mock glare at Lucky Roo. “You tryna cheat more money outta me?”</p><p class="western">“The two extra racks are all mine, bro,” Lucky Roo snickered. “Ain’t nothing wrong with having a light dinner in my own establishment, right?”</p><p class="western">“Oh,” Marco said, “so you’re…”</p><p class="western">“Shanks’ meat guy. I take care’a the joint,” he confirmed, still all teeth and gums. Swim goggles hung around his neck for some reason, glowing red in the buzzing streetlights. “Didj’all turn the TV volume up like I toldju?”</p><p class="western">Thatch gestured dramatically at the thick metal service door, through which they could still hear the violently thumping bass of the music Curiel put on. “Does that sound like it needs more volume?”</p><p class="western">“Hey, I’m just saying! We’ve been known to have a bit of a bug problem, is all.”</p><p class="western">Ah. So the police reports Marco’d dug up (from a scarily futuristic underground internet cafe in Incheon) <em>had</em> been referring to the Red Force Pub and Grill.</p><p class="western">“Hm, you should’ve mentioned,” Thatch said with a waspish wrinkle of his nose. “But luckily we carry our own bug spray.”</p><p class="western">“Dunno bro, the cockroaches are <em>mad</em>.”</p><p class="western">“Yeah well, so’s our tech guy.”</p><p class="western">Indeed, Haruta had, upon greeting Marco, immediately snatched away Marco’s phone for some software surgery. Marco hadn’t been lax on the set of general security protocols Haruta liked to put out (he managed a whole locked-down Wiki on the matter, tauntingly named TOP SECRET WHITEBEARD TECH SECURITY SUCK ON THIS COPPERS dot wikia dot org), but there was apparently still more to do. In minutes, Haruta had purged his phone of several “multi-vector polymorphic bugs, why are you bringing Ukrainian hackers into my backyard actually that’s perfect, thanks Marco, this will be fun.” Marco didn’t doubt Haruta had thoroughly swept the place before everybody arrived; he didn’t doubt Thatch had insisted, despite the current show of passive ignorance.</p><p class="western">Lucky Roo pulled out a private plate of fried chicken from his front seat before locking up.</p><p class="western">“Cheers, my dudes.” The drumstick Marco was offered gave up a crispy crackle, when Lucky Roo knocked all three of their pieces of chicken together as if they were beer glasses. “I’ll hang around some and see myself out later, yeah? You’re still locking up.”</p><p class="western">“What about my extra kegs?” Thatch demanded.</p><p class="western">“Oh, our big guy’s bringing that!” To say Marco’s stomach sank at the news would be far too dramatic; Shanks didn’t have that strong an impact on Marco’s anything. There also was nothing mean about Lucky Roo’s continuous grin, but all of a sudden, Marco was feeling a remarkable amount of hostility toward the man. “He says he can’t wait to see you, man. It must be good to be home.”</p><p class="western">Home, for all its comforts and family, was also inundated with hapless messiness. Even for a man like Marco, who actively tried to purge anything resembling a loose thread from his life, still had some fibers fluttering wildly with the wind. One such fiber: Red Hair Shanks. He was like a perpetual tickle down the back of Marco’s shirt that for the life of him, Marco just couldn’t seem to reach and yank free.</p><p class="western">“Of course, yoi,” was Marco’s reply. “Luffy’s here. Bet he can’t wait to see that guy either.”</p><hr/><p class="western">“<em>Shanks!</em>”</p><p class="western">“Luffy!”</p><p class="western">Marco kept his eyes fixed on the high-speed darts game between Kingdew and Rakuyo. He’d refused to look over at the sound of Shanks’ car pulling up and he refused to look over now. Luffy’s unstoppable force greeting Red Hair’s immovable object certainly seemed spectacular from Marco’s peripherals. There was the sound of breaking glass and a new waft of that good beer Marco’s been drinking all night.</p><p class="western">Marco quickly chugged the rest of his glass and flung it away. He also poured himself two fingers of whiskey in an attempt to wash away the incriminating scent.</p><p class="western">“A thousand belli,” Rakuyo drawled as he lined up his next shot, “that Marco draws first blood tonight.”</p><p class="western">“Two thousand,” Kingdew muttered into his drink, deliberately avoiding Marco’s gaze, “that Marco gets flustered by at least three compliments first.”</p><p class="western">Another two fingers, and Marco considered wielding the entire bottle of Jack—for drinking or for clubbing purposes, he’d figure out as the evening went along.</p><p class="western">“I do not get <em>flustered</em> and they are not <em>compliments</em>,” Marco protested hissily. “He’s always had it out for me—”</p><p class="western">“Yeah, his <em>dick</em> out for you,” was Kingdew’s completely unnecessary comment on that, while Rakuyo started aggressively humming the saxophone solo from Careless Whisper. With a growl, Marco grabbed a fistful of darts and jabbed it all into the one-point section. The machine shuddered and beeped through the series of bad scores as Kingdew and Rakuyo yelped in protest.</p><p class="western">“Aw, what’d they do?"</p><p class="western">Marco forced himself to drop the darts before he turned around to face Shanks, lest he used them as a stabbing weapon.</p><p class="western">“Insinuated you wanted to get in my pants, yoi.”</p><p class="western">Shanks’ brows lifted in mild surprise, but his eyes, the same color of the whiskey in Marco’s hand, were congenial as always.</p><p class="western">“When I was just about to come and do that myself? Stealing my thunder, boys.”</p><p class="western">In their near-decade of <em>acquaintanceship</em>, he and Shanks have had all but three conversations, if Marco felt generous enough to count an extremely short email exchange four years ago that acknowledged both their presence in Addis Ababa and conveyed little else. Yet, their pattern of correspondence had never changed from what came so naturally out of that first time: nonchalant dumbassery met by vitriol with extreme prejudice.</p><p class="western">“You’re really not my type, yoi.”</p><p class="western">“I mean this in the least slut-shaming way possible,” Shanks said, blinking innocently on top of a smile, “but isn’t everybody your type?”</p><p class="western">Kingdew and Rakuyo <em>ooh</em>’d while giving them the side-eye, enjoying themselves but ready to square up if need be. Well, Marco didn’t need that to be.</p><p class="western">“Yeah, sucks to be the exception, doesn’t it?”</p><p class="western">Shanks tossed his head back in laughter, clean-shaven jaw all smooth and soft and features all Grecian lines. He really looked nothing like the infamous, widely whispered-about underground crime boss his stupid self-chosen name tried to paint him as. And it was this precise characteristic that Marco, if pressed, could confess to hating about Red Hair—that easy-going countenance placed so deliberately on top of terrifying competence. It wasn’t that Marco didn’t consider Shanks a serious threat to Whitebeard operations, it was that Shanks refused to present himself as one, all while his line of business encroached steadily on Whitebeard territory. It was disingenuous, and Marco wondered who he thought he was fooling.</p><p class="western">So when Shanks laughed like Marco was just a friend who made a good joke, like he wasn’t surrounded by enemy combatants with only one man (and a half, since Luffy could be counted on to at least delay Shanks’ murder, if it came to that) as backup, like he wasn’t feeling threatened at <em>all</em>, Marco scowled some more and stalked back to the bar. Shanks followed, to Marco’s ire, and lounged by the sink watching as Marco began pulling liquor from the shelves.</p><p class="western">“What are you having?” Marco asked stiffly, because he wasn’t about to give Shanks the satisfaction of calling him inhospitable.</p><p class="western">“Can’t, I’m driving,” was Shanks’ rueful response. That went some ways in ameliorating Marco; everybody in the Family knew the very personal, very vicious verbal lashing they would be in for if they ever drove drunk. It would seem Red Hair had at least some sense. “What’s your poison of choice?”</p><p class="western">“Nothing in particular, yoi.” That wasn’t true, but Marco hardly wanted to make this easy for Shanks. Shanks laughed again, rising to the challenge.</p><p class="western">“Well I know you liked the beer at least.” He tapped the side of his nose and winked. Dammit. “Jack, too. Now this is a… Rusty Nail?”</p><p class="western">Dropping the identificatory tight twist of lemon peel into his drink, Marco didn’t answer.</p><p class="western">“So you’re a whiskey man. I’m partial myself.” When Marco still refused to reply, busying himself with tidying up the backbar, Shanks straightened his stance with the slightest of pouts. “C’mon Marco, I’m trying to be friends here. It takes two to tango, you know. You gotta meet me halfway.”</p><p class="western">Another reason for hating Shanks: the blustering clichés he had a history of spouting off, intending to <em>charm</em>. Ace had once described that as <em>effective</em><em> don’t you think? ‘Cause he’s ironically unironic about it</em>, but Marco’s never seen the appeal.</p><p class="western">“We don’t have to be friends,” Marco reminded him, as he yanked pourers from empty bottles of vodka. Blenheim had fully drank Namur under the table here earlier. “In fact yoi, I think we’re already enemies.”</p><p class="western">“Enemies? I want you to join my crew, why would you be my enemy?”</p><p class="western">And there it was—the ultimate reason Marco so despised Shanks’ presence as it wandered in and out of his life. Ever since the first time they met and Shanks singled him out (made him the<em> exception</em>) with that bombshell question: <em>you’re Marco, right? Wanna join my crew?</em> God did Marco rant that night, spurred on by an entire liter of chugged moscato to the gleeful entertainment of his siblings.</p><p class="western">“I’m your enemy,” Marco said slowly as he swallowed down his temper, really not wanting to get into it tonight, “because I will happily see your enterprise wiped out by our expansion yoi. Checked in on your stocks recently?”</p><p class="western">Maybe it was a trick of the light (someone popped a bottle of champagne and sent a stream of alcoholic foam arching into the air), but Marco’d like to think he saw a flash of flintiness in Shanks’ eyes.</p><p class="western">“Oh that was you, was it?”</p><p class="western">“Shouldn’t have invested in Ukrainian cotton before their labor reorganizing,” Marco chastised, fully expecting Shanks to walk away now. Instead, Shanks filled a rocks glass (the <em>heathen</em>) with water from the soda gun and clinked it against Marco’s.</p><p class="western">“Good advice, I’ll pass it on to Benn.” And now Marco could only gulp angrily at his drink, the bouquet of honey and heather placating him only somewhat. “Where’s your Pops tonight? He hasn’t come at all—there’s still booze left.”</p><p class="western">Reflexively, Marco’s hand twitched toward his pocket (and Shanks definitely caught the movement). The airline website, two and a half hours ago, had given the touchdown time of Pop’s plane to be right around now. It would still be another hour’s drive to the city, no matter how many traffic laws Squard broke on the way here.</p><p class="western">“Couldn’t make it,” Marco shrugged, not wanting to reveal the details of Pop’s comings and goings with <em>Red Hair</em>, of all people.</p><p class="western">“To his most infamous son’s homecoming?”</p><p class="western">Marco’s eyes narrowed; Shanks was pressing, Marco knew he was pressing, and Shanks knew that Marco knew he was pressing. Still, Red Hair didn’t give. Marco all of a sudden remembered Jozu’s warning at the top of the night, about powerful people who believed Marco and Pops had a falling out. If Shanks believed in that, would it be to the Whitebeards’ advantage?</p><p class="western">But in the end, it was more Marco’s aversion to telling Red Hair <em>anything</em> that kept his mouth shut, less a strategic play. There was still so much he’s yet to tell his siblings, why would Shanks, a perfect stranger, be the first to hear?</p><p class="western">Luffy saved the day, bounding over and breaking the stalemated silence by tackling Shanks’ back and ordering a “coke on the rocks” from Marco. Marco topped a rocks glass with ice to match Shanks’, filling it from the soda gun and sliding it over obligingly.</p><p class="western">“Hey Luffy,” Shanks said cheerily, touching his glass to Luffy’s as well, “ready to tell me yet?”</p><p class="western">Luffy’s big grin immediately fell away to the constipated expression he always wore when he was lying.</p><p class="western">“C’<em>mon</em> Shanks,” he whined, “don’t do this to me. They told me not to tell.”</p><p class="western">“Yeah, in exchange for meat. You got the meat already, didn’t you? So tell me already.”</p><p class="western">“Tell him what, yoi?” Marco asked Luffy, silently offering the soda gun for another top off.</p><p class="western">“Your civilian job,” Luffy answered glumly. Grease from the ribs stained his chin. “Ace and Thatch said if Shanks won’t tell us what he does, we won’t tell him what you do.”</p><p class="western">“…Oh.” Marco, with the twofold goal of alleviating Luffy’s burden and making things interesting, swallowed down the last of his drink before turning to Shanks. “I’m a tattoo artist, yoi.”</p><p class="western">“I—” Clearly not expecting the answer to come just like that, Shanks stilled himself from a double-take. “A tattoo artist?”</p><p class="western">“Yup.”</p><p class="western">He was doing this to fuck with everyone, Ace, Thatch—Shanks especially. Smirking opaquely at Red Hair was a perfect <em>thrill</em>, as was watching the look in Shanks’ eyes shift from trusting to suspicion to impetus.</p><p class="western">“Cool. I’ve always wanted a tattoo. Do you take appointments?”</p><p class="western">“Of course yoi. I’ll be around tomorrow.”</p><p class="western">“Pencil me in then. And where can I find your place of employment?”</p><p class="western">Holding back a snicker at Shanks’ clear tone of disbelief, Marco pulled out his phone (caught a glimpse—Pop’s plane had in fact landed when it said it would, meaning he was surely on his way) and texted the address to Shanks’ phone. Shanks looked appropriately impressed, seeing as he’d just gotten the phone and new number four days ago, and hadn’t so much as seen Marco in <em>years</em>.</p><p class="western">“Tomorrow it is. Come in any time yoi, I’ll clear my schedule for you.”</p><p class="western">Shanks was trying to call Marco’s bluff. Marco couldn’t wait to see the look in his eyes when he realized there was no bluff. And this way, Marco got to leave a permanent mark of his victory right on Shanks’ skin. Win-win.</p><p class="western">“Oh, me too Marco,” Luffy said brightly. “I get tomorrow afternoon off after my meeting with HR, <em>shishi</em>.”</p><p class="western">“I’ll get some food ready then,” Marco promised.</p><p class="western">Then, “...why is HR calling you in, yoi?”</p><hr/><p class="western">It was nearing 4AM when Pops finally arrived, and Shanks was long gone by then. All flagging members of the Family caught their second wind at the distinctive sound of Squard’s “reclaimed” Ferrari pulling up, and Pops was heralded into the Red Force with enormous fanfare.</p><p class="western">Marco found himself frozen where he stood, one foot on the dais furthest from the front door (though in direct line of sight), about to step up to the only booth without knife marks in the pleather seats. Outside was thoroughly dark, and when the door opened, Pops cast an inky shadow across the trapezoidal spill of florescence across the pavement. Marco suddenly remembered curling up into a ball as a child, when he’d first been fostered, right in the center of that shadow, believing it was so strong and powerful that it could shield him from the world.</p><p class="western">(Almost thirty years later now, Marco still believed that. He still woke up, after nightmares and cold sweat, craving the warm clasp of his father’s hand, and cursing himself for running away to Ho Chi Minh City-Port Louis-Florence-Jakarta-whichever city that was somebody else’s home but not <em>his</em>. His home wasn’t a city, but a broad back and steady shoulders. His home was the fanfare of siblings not by blood, but by need.)</p><p class="western">Pops, mustache slicked up and unwinding his scarf, spotted Marco across the room.</p><p class="western">“<em>Son</em>,” he boomed, and people parted the way soil parted for tender new roots. Pops was, in the blink of an eye, in front of Marco, and that blink of an eye was to keep back the tears that threatened to flood. If Marco kept still, kept his distance, this could be just another video call—it wasn’t like Marco had completely eschewed communications with Pops for the past five years. Not moving, not<em> breathing</em>, Marco was safe from an emotional breakdown, the distance between them crawling all over him like static electricity on a laptop screen.</p><p class="western">But then Pops opened his arms.</p><p class="western">“Welcome home.”</p><p class="western">Marco flung himself into his father’s hug and began to cry.</p><p class="western">He wasn’t silent about it, wet sniffles as loud as the affectionate chuckling from his siblings all around. Pops held him tight through all those ugly sobs, every bit as comforting as Marco remembered.</p><p class="western">(But just a little bit thinner, a bit less massive. It made Marco hold on tighter, that potent reminder of the ephemerality of all things. Even the most steel-bending and ground-warping of earthquakes ended.)</p><p class="western">“Oh, my son,” Pops uttered, rumbling carrying through to Marco’s chest. Marco felt like a tuning fork, pitched perfectly to whatever this man needed from him, finally singing the right note again. “You’re finally home.”</p><p class="western">“I’m so sorry yoi.” The apology that had sat on his lips for the better part of five years, never once finding the momentum to tip forward or backward, finally jumped. It crumbled to dilapidated pieces in the air. “I never should’ve—<em>Shit</em> Pops, I was so stupid I never even wanted to—”</p><p class="western">“No, Marco,” Pops shushed him with a tight grip to the back of his neck, and Marco fell limp instantly. “It’s me who should be sorry. I was wrong, son, in so many ways.”</p><p class="western">That made Marco shift reluctantly out of Pop’s hold.</p><p class="western">“No, I—”</p><p class="western">“You know it’s true.” He peered down straight into Marco’s eyes, and this was Edward Newgate. This was the man who looked at sixteen-year-old Marco in the exact same way, after getting Marco out on bail for identity fraud, and told him, <em>I don’t imagine I can keep you out of a life of crime if that’s what you really want to do, but you have to understand that it’s not something you </em>have<em> to do just because your old man’s in too deep. You got that?</em> This was the man who looked at twenty-three-year-old Marco and said, <em>you really think I’m worried about you wanting to play with knives and guns during sex? You know what I’m worried about? You staying up all night to deal with that guy in New York. I’m gonna tell Whitey to kill that guy in New York if you keep missing sleep, son, that’s what you should really be confessing to me about.</em></p><p class="western">Perfect clarity. Marco knew what Pops was going to say next, before he’s even said it.</p><p class="western">“You really don’t have to yoi.”</p><p class="western">Pops smiled, joy in every wrinkle crow-footing around his eyes. He always conveyed such bliss when Marco did this, the little “mind-reading” trick, and Marco always felt so fundamentally proud in response.</p><p class="western">“I’m going to.” A rueful laugh, the syllables of Pop’s mother language rolling off his tongue. “They’re gonna be so fucking angry with me.”</p><p class="western">“Yeah, we will be <em>now</em>,” Thatch said loudly from behind them. Marco leaned further back to look, and all fifteen of the other commanders, the selected leaders of their sibling hoard, had gathered to shamelessly pry. They wore a variety of expressions, from Ace’s half-smiling confusion to Namur’s blatant frown of disapproval—but the common thread running under all of them was concern. “What the hell’s going on Pops? Marco?”</p><p class="western">“You’ve kept us in the dark for five years,” Vista added, conveying to Marco through a series of angry squints <em>I knew it! I knew there was something!</em> “About time.”</p><p class="western">“What,” Marco gaped at Pops, “now, yoi?”</p><p class="western">“Gotta be now,” Pops said with a solemn shrug. “A third of you have other cities to be in tomorrow.”</p><p class="western">“Okay,” was Marco’s wary agreement. He glanced about, thinking of the potential fallout. They were family—of course in the end they’d be okay, but sometimes it took five years of circumambulating the globe to get back to “okay.”</p><p class="western">His shoulders unconsciously squared, bracing for impact, until Pops gave him a reassuring little shake.</p><p class="western">“You’ve been cleaning up my messes for a long time Marco,” he said, stepping up to face his children. “This one isn’t yours to take.”</p><p class="western">Marco didn’t answer, but the sleeves of his shirt were thoroughly, grossly re-soaked in tears. Ace shot him a look of concern, but Marco stayed out of reach, wanting to give Ace the opportunity to fully process what Pops was about to say by himself without having to be concerned about Marco.</p><p class="western">(Marco did, however, grunt for everyone to hit pause while he fetched a tray of twelve shot glasses. He topped each to the brim with grain alcohol from the Chinese highlands, and handed them about to the non-drivers. Some refused it. So did Pops, in a ceremonial gesture to the seriousness of the situation. The remaining shot glasses were set on the dais table like cups for ancestral worship.)</p><p class="western">“Five years ago,” Pops began, as incongruous punk percussioned on in the pub around them. Nobody else was listening in, besides the commanders, but Marco supposed news would get around soon enough. “I was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin lymphoma. I’d planned to keep it secret from everyone until I’ve finished treatment, whichever way it went.”</p><p class="western">The silence from the commanders felt like ink, viscous waves of it pouring into once-clean water. Even for Marco, who’d known, the words put so stark were rending.</p><p class="western">“Marco found out on accident,” Pops continued, calmly, notes of guilt or blame completely absent. A tone as clean as pigment. “I asked him not to tell anybody.”</p><p class="western">Heads turned to Marco, but Marco couldn’t look back at any of them. The culpability, however much Pops hoped to absolve him of it, sat thick and bitter on the back of his tongue.</p><p class="western">“He didn’t. The lymphoma went into remission, I’m fine now with periodic checkups. Marco decided it was best for him to leave.” The shitty tabletop of Shanks’ shitty bar was uneven, and one of the shot glasses, sitting crooked on a bump, was rattling with every pulse of the sound system. Clear liquor was dribbling off the edge of it as surface tension broke and reformed, broke and reformed. A pool gathered at its base.</p><p class="western">“<em>What</em>…” Izo growled, voice as terrified as it was terrifying. “...the <em>fuck</em>?”</p><p class="western">“Oh,” Vista breathed, looking as miserable as Marco knew he would, if he ever found out the truth of the drama he so wished to know. And he has. “Marco, why didn’t you…?”</p><p class="western">It was the same impotent, unfinished question on everybody’s minds. <em>Why didn’t you…?</em> Marco must’ve asked himself that a hundred times a day, for the past five years. He gritted his teeth, knowing in that moment that there was no way he could just stay back, let Pops answer to it all himself as if he were the sole person to blame.</p><p class="western">“I should’ve, yoi.” Keeping his chin up through willpower alone, Marco met each sibling’s eyes in turn, absorbing their most surface feelings and even some beneath that. Izo’s anger, Curiel’s betrayal, Ace’s solemnity with the hurt bleeding through. Then he looked at Pops, who looked so <em>sorry</em>, yet so proud, in every direction. “But I couldn’t. I got scared, and I ran.”</p><p class="western">“What made you come back?” Ace’s voice came so softly, not all of the commanders heard him. Marco did though, and froze all over again, at the fact that Ace, no doubt aching with the burn of what-had-almost-been, was still immediately asking after Marco’s redemption.</p><p class="western">“Shame,” Marco whispered before he’s even processed the act. Ace looked even more hurt, though perhaps for Marco rather than by him. “Loneliness. I made a mistake that I didn’t know how to fix, yoi. But then I realized…” Alcohol and its consoling ability to dull all sharp-edged thoughts was draining out of Marco as readily as it drained out of the shot glass on the table. He too was off-kilter, trying so desperately to stomp flat a curved earth. “Fuck, yoi, there’s no not-pathetic way to put this, is there? I had to come back ‘cause I needed you guys, I needed to be here and face my fears instead of hiding like a snot-nosed brat and I know it’s not something to ask for yoi, I’m not expecting it at all but I need you guys to <em>forgive</em>—”</p><p class="western">“<em>Of course we forgive you</em>,” Jozu declared with great urgency. Without further ado, he grabbed the nearest handful of scowling siblings—Rakuyo and Izo—and strong-armed them forward into a group hug. The others came forward too, faces and limbs mashing into each others’ with Pops and Marco at the center. Jozu, popping his head above everybody else’s, fixed Pops with an unhappy look. “Some of us might just need some time.”</p><p class="western">“I know, son,” Pops said, crushing everybody within reach in one last lung-bursting, grateful squeeze.</p><hr/><p class="western">Despite his physical, emotional, <em>existential</em> exhaustion, Marco knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep that night. One, because it was already morning by the time he got home (via taxi, after Ace drove off with Luffy at the end of the night without a word, and Marco silently waved off every other sibling that offered a ride). Two, because he didn’t have any sheets. He’d certainly slept in worse conditions than a solid mattress, four walls and a roof—but the discomfort of even the visuality was not something Marco could attempt to reconcile right now, so he resigned himself to bleary-eyed grossness through the day to come.</p><p class="western">He unpacked his scant belongings, did the unfolding and refolding, the straightening on hangers. He aligned the bottles, dropped his toothbrush and razor in their proper slots. He showered with the bar of hotel soap he’d had the foresight to pocket, hung the towel up to dry.</p><p class="western">And that, he thought with clammy dread, as he slotted his two pairs of shoes into their places on the stand, was that. The vestiges of his life, what he’d carried for the past five years, didn’t even properly fill a wardrobe. The living room was barren of life, empty electrical sockets staring up at him with their little faces of surprise. His own bedroom was pale and naked, the kitchen cold. What had once been Jozu’s room stayed behind a closed door, knob dusty and untouched. The liveliest room in the whole apartment was the goddamn bathroom, where he had popped open a window to allow the minor condensation from his five-minute shower to escape. Marco could hear dawning birdsong through that window, echoing between the shower and the toilet.</p><p class="western">Marco had never felt so downtrodden and pathetic. More than cry, he wanted to <em>spit</em>, at his shoes, at his suitcases split at the belly and lying open on the living room floor, at his own shadow, immaterial and hazy yet insistent on dogging Marco’s every step.</p><p class="western">“You are,” he told himself, as he pulled on a sweater and slipped on his glasses, “pathetic.”</p><p class="western">So he decided to start on the shop.</p><p class="western">Even though it was all the same building, the first floor felt… different, like his apartment was the dusty plaster bones and downstairs sat the pumping heart, the rhyming lungs. Ace had been life support, but Marco was back online now. Whatever else was dying, he could at least start by resuscitating this.</p><p class="western">Five-thirty AM. Marco first walked through the pinking fog to the bakery on his corner. Their lights had already been on since four, and when Marco knocked lightly on the glass of their front door, Chiffon answered in bright spirits.</p><p class="western">“I heard you were back in town.” Her scent, when Marco hugged her, was all confectioners’ sugar. “How long has it been!”</p><p class="western">“Too long yoi,” Marco declared as his stomach grumbled on cue. Five years hadn’t been enough to un-train Marco’s Pavlovian reaction to Chiffon’s bakery. “Mmh. I smell bagels.”</p><p class="western">“My bagels are too good for you to treat as hangover food,” she drawled even as she ushered him in. “But I suppose I can forgive it just this once. Coffee’s on the counter, you look like you can use it.”</p><p class="western">Front of house wouldn’t be fully set up until the morning shift came in at seven, but there were already loaves and loaves of bread and cakes laid out on cooling racks. Marco shuffled along after Chiffon to the kitchen, basking in the heat and fragrance of baking goods. The olfactory decadence reminded Marco of the night before, of meeting “Shanks’ meat guy” Lucky Roo, then of Shanks himself, which in turn reminded Marco that Shanks was supposedly coming in some time today.</p><p class="western">The coffee was familiarly and comfortingly burnt. It had always been Bege, Chiffon’s beloved husband, who was the coffee snob.</p><p class="western">“I have cream cheese and lox in the fridge too, if you—Or not.” Chiffon’s grin was wry, when she looked up to see that Marco had already scarfed down a poppyseed bagel, and was halfway through a sesame one. “You’ve always liked those bird feed ones.”</p><p class="western">“Did you make extras just for me?” Marco teased, half-serious because he didn’t remember Chiffon making this much in the mornings five years ago. But perhaps her operations have expanded.</p><p class="western">“All you boys in the business make up most my income,” Chiffon replied, slathering a thick chocolate paste on a sheet of dough with expert swipes of a long thin knife. Marco had once seen her draw arterial blood with that knife, and had offered his autoclave to sterilize it for her after. They’ve been friendly ever since. “Doesn’t hurt to be considerate of the more <em>influential</em> lot.”</p><p class="western">“I thank your consideration kindly, yoi. Have your prices changed?”</p><p class="western">“For you? No.”</p><p class="western">“Please, Chiffon,” he chastened, drawing out four thousand-belli bills and tucking them in the pocket of Chiffon’s coat, hanging by the door. “I won’t have your husband try to level with me at a work meeting again. It was embarrassing enough the first time around yoi.”</p><p class="western">“Mostly for him,” Chiffon snorted. “Still though, that’s way too much unless you’re taking thirty more bagels with you. They’re good, but I’ll be here all week.”</p><p class="western">“I’ll take two more of each, and one other thing.” Polishing off the last of his coffee, Marco scratched at his scruff. “Speaking of the influential, I don’t suppose you cater to a certain infamous redhead, yoi.”</p><p class="western">Eyes narrowing, Chiffon looked up and flipped the knife across her knuckles.</p><p class="western">“You know I don’t bake and tell, Marco-san.” He knew she had her husband’s interests to protect, and Bege’s long-since dealt passively with all the major players on the board. Their operations weren’t too slimy (at least, compared to a lot of others), but they were still shameless opportunists. Marco could respect that in a mafia boss.</p><p class="western">“Not asking you to tell tales,” Marco placated, rinsing out his mug and hanging it to dry. “It’s an honest question, I promise yoi. I might be getting a visitor at the shop later.”</p><p class="western">Chiffon blinked, and Marco could already see the wheels turning in her head. He wondered what sort of new line of venture she and Bege could commence from this information, and made a mental note to keep an eye out.</p><p class="western">“Well I suppose,” she said, after a long moment’s consideration, “it wouldn’t hurt for you to take along a slice or two of the honey whiskey cake over there.”</p><p class="western">
  <em>Huh. So he wasn’t lying.</em>
</p><p class="western">“Any other recommendations?”</p><p class="western">“We don’t make this until Pudding gets in, but I’ll come around with some pork buns later. Hong Kong style with pineapple breading on top—oh you’ll love it. We sell out in minutes.”</p><p class="western">“I’ll look forward to it yoi,” Marco said warmly, wrapping his spoils in wax paper and tucking it under his arm. “I’ll see myself out then, bring around this Hungarian port next time that I know you’ll love.”</p><p class="western">“Good man,” Chiffon cheered. Without glancing up, she pointed toward the corner by the front door. It had been outside of Marco’s line of sight walking in. “Oh, and you’d better be taking <em>her</em> off my hands.”</p><p class="western">Marco crossed the kitchen threshold, stepped behind the counter, and stopped before the corner with the awe of an acolyte.</p><p class="western">“Oh, Chiffon...”</p><p class="western">“Honestly my husband handled most of the care,” Chiffon called from the kitchen, tone deliberately nonchalant. “You know me. All the plants I can handle are dead and processed.”</p><p class="western">“She’s grown so much.”</p><p class="western">“It has been five years.”</p><p class="western">With a gentle touch, Marco curved a leaf through his fingers. It was a vibrant shade of dark green, its surface demarcated into fine strips with grooving veins. The plant had truly grown enormous, arching tall and spilling dramatically over the circumference of her ten-inch pot. Spathes shot up from the center, still furled demurely; they were white and pink like the fog outside, upright spears of potency.</p><p class="western">“I don’t know how to thank you yoi.” Hoisting the plant carefully into one arm (and she was <em>heavy</em> too, just watered), Marco glanced back to Chiffon. “Your husband, on the other hand, I know exactly how to thank.”</p><p class="western">“You’ve always been quick on the uptake,” Chiffon winked with a tap to the side of her nose that left a powdery stain of flour. “The Santa Fe deal and we’ll call it even.”</p><p class="western">“Done,” Marco promised.</p><p class="western">“Now get out of here,” Chiffon laughed. “Wouldn’t want to be seen with you unsavory sorts loitering about my store. Imagine what people would say.”</p><hr/><p class="western">Getting the plant back was as good as turning the lights on, as good as pulling wide apart the blackout curtains across his front window, letting the day dawn. Marco felt like the shop could <em>breathe</em> again, green growth on the brown of polished wood and metal of surgical steel. The warm fragrance of the bagels and the tantalizing waft of whiskey helped too. It energized Marco enough to kickstart the rusty gears of his morning once-routine again. Wipe down the chairs, the mirrors, the coffee machine, the counters (leaving his tools out for a more thorough accounting later). Dust the framed flashes displayed on the wall. Check the ink on his drawing pens and sharpen all his pencils. Restock scratch and drawing papers in neat stacks of descending size. Clean the bathroom and turn on the dehumidifier tucked in its corner. Sweep and mop the floors.</p><p class="western">By the time pedestrians started to cross his window with regularity, Marco felt settled enough to start up some music. Nothing fancy, nothing chosen—just a livestream of ambient songs broadcasted softly from his phone charging on the front counter. It was just enough to give a little more essence to the space, a little more coagulation to the air. Like putting another layer on, Marco felt that much more present.</p><p class="western">When 8AM hit everything was tidied up and ready to go. But Marco wasn’t planning on taking it to go anywhere, at least not this day. He’d left the money register empty and open, his accounting logs closed and in the file cabinet.</p><p class="western">He worked on the tools instead, picking up and carefully inspecting each to remind himself exactly what he had. Sixteen little power tools, cleaned once more by his hand and tucked back away in all of their old spots.</p><p class="western">There was also a tattoo pen he’d never seen—Ace’s or Luffy’s, no doubt, along with a small array of ink bottles. Three years ago, when he was walking through the streets of Debrecen on a video call with Ace, he’d offhandedly mentioned the two-year shelf life of tattoo inks. Just in case. Ace had obviously caught on, because the shelf in the back that had once been lined with bottles of ink was completely empty. Marco wondered if anybody had put them to use, before he’d let them all gone to waste.</p><p class="western">If Shanks actually came today, he decided, Ace and Luffy wouldn’t begrudge him one bottle of black. He’d already done much worse injury to Ace, after all. This wasn’t even a cat scratch in comparison.</p><p class="western">(Though Marco certainly wondered how he could <em>ever</em> pay Ace back—first for Ace’s care of his shop in the past half-decade, second for his lie. The number of times Ace has asked, in that insightful way of his, <em>Marco, you’d tell me if anything was wrong, right?</em> And the number of times Marco had said, <em>of course, yoi.</em>)</p><p class="western">The music channel found some fast-hitting hi-hat that whittled Marco out of his gloomy preoccupation. He grabbed two tattoo guns, along with a bottle of ink, and set it on a tray beside one of the reclining seats in the back. He also set out the unfamiliar pen, ready for everything. Then, to his surprise, Marco found himself yawning. His body had burned quickly through the 6AM coffee, and now sleep felt actually persuasive.</p><p class="western">Wiping the tears from his eyes, Marco stumbled his way to the front room, past the curtain and partition that hid away his actual workshop in the back. He had one reclining seat set up in the front, available but rarely used. It was into this seat that he drew himself, toeing off his sneakers just in time for another yawn, then thick slumber, to claim him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Up Next: gift-giving as a love language is probably more effective if there's less threats to people's lives involved. Or, both Shanks and Marco get tattoos.</p><p>Please drop me a comment and tell me what you think!! As always, my <a href="https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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